About Jessica Blain-Lewis

Jessica Blain-Lewis

Assistant District Attorney for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office

Jessica Blain-Lewis is an Assistant District Attorney for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office in Albany, New York. She has served in this capacity since 2006, and has been a part of the Financial Crimes Unit since January 2012. Jessica has always been passionate about fighting for the rights of the people who cannot otherwise defend themselves.

 

Education & Early Career

In high school, Jessica learned to work hard and push herself to her limits. She had always known that she wanted to be a prosecutor, and was tireless in her pursuit of this goal. She attended SUNY Plattsburgh, and graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Speech Communication. She received several honors, including the Excellence Award in Business and Professional Speaking and the Scholarship for Academic Achievement; Jessica was also on the Dean’s list for 6 semesters.

After graduating from Plattsburgh State, Jessica was admitted to the Albany Law School of Union University, from which she received her Juris Doctor in 2005. Jessica was extremely involved in extracurricular opportunities during her time in law school: she participated in the Donna Jo Morse Negotiations Moot Court Competition, and served as a research assistant for Professor Vincent Martin Bonventre. She was also the Senior Editor for the Government, Law, and Policy Journal, and the Executive Editor for the Center for Judicial Capacity, in which capacity she co-authored a paper on rates of agreement, rejection and vindication in Appellate Court justices. She interned at the Albany Law School’s Civil Rights and Disabilities Law Clinic, and served as a law clerk in the Appeals Unit. Jessica was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2006.

District Attorney’s Office

Jessica had known from the start of her law career that she wanted to work at a District Attorney’s office, and so that was all that she applied for after passing the bar. She had been interning at the Albany District Attorney’s office, and was hired immediately upon graduation, in November 2005. Jessica started out in the Street Crimes Unit, where she ran the Safe Home–Safe Streets initiative: this consisted in training landlords, educating them about their legal obligations, and how to evict tenants for selling or possessing narcotic substances based on the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law. She was the first to put in place this new initiative.

In January 2010, Jessica moved to the Major Offenses Unit, where she handled a number of felony cases including burglary, robbery, larceny, and assaults. One year later, she shifted to the Financial Crimes Unit. There, Jessica handled felony cases involving aspects of white collar crimes with a focus on crimes against seniors. She is particularly passionate about cases of elder abuse, and has been actively training people on how to be mindful of instances of elder abuse, and how to handle such cases.

In December 2016, ADA Blain-Lewis became the Bureau Chief of the Street Crimes Unit, which oversees the prosecution of illegal narcotics cases in Albany County.

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